Rein in the Trojan Horse

The question is not how the commission set up by the PDM (Pakistan Democratic Movement) government would go about the audio leaks saga.

The question is: was it really needed when all these leaks revealed was already in the public domain? And how these leaks impacted the public perception about the higher judiciary, that’s now more of academic interest than to be a Trojan Horse to break into the impregnable fortress of judicial independence.

In these times and age of cyber intrusion, nothing is left to be termed privacy, and it is no wonder that people, connected with judges for whatever reasons, also talk to each other on telephone about the difficult times the country is passing through.

There was no need for this commission, even if there is the Pakistan Commission of Inquiry Act 2017 on the statute book. Is it in the national interest to set up a high-level inquiry to malign CJP Umar Ata Bandial just because his observations and judgements do not sit well with the PDM government’s political interests?

The PTI (Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf) has challenged the constitution of the inquiry commission, saying it is politically motivated and is aimed at affecting the independence of the judiciary.

According to the petition, filed on his behalf by Advocate Babar Awan, the very act of launching of the inquiry commission is confession of phone-tapping by the sitting government, which is in clear violation of constitutionally-granted fundamental rights under Articles 4, 9 and 19.

Then he also pointed out the illegality of formation of a commission by the federal government on its own without sanction of the Chief Justice of Pakistan mandated as it is under Article 175(3). Why then is it that the commission will take up only the leaks about the judges and their families? By accepting it as gospel truth we would be mortgaging our future to the demons of Artificial Intelligence.

That being the background of the saga of audio leaks one would hope and wish that the commission would send the file back to the government remarking that there is nothing to investigate as what the commission is expected to discover is already in public domain.

Chaudhry Sikandar Hayat,

Islamabad

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023